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Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Unlike a Broken Clock, Fox News is Rarely Right

It's a shame that the Fourth Estate, rather than reporting the news, has
become nothing more than an ideological tool that deliberately misleads the
public on serious issues to advocate for special interests, instead of
informing us of the facts --- yellow journalism, sensationalism, misleading
headlines, propaganda, lies --- everything except the truth. “If you tell a
lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe
it."

Earlier this week the Center for Economic Policy and Research criticized
CBS for falsely reporting on 60 Minutes about there being widespread
fraud in the Social Security program. First it was NPR spreading
misinformation, then lately it was CBS, and now Fox News has (again) jumped on
the propaganda bandwagon to mislead us about the facts concerning the Social
Security disability program.

They say that even a broken clock can be right twice a day, and the same
might be said for the far-right Fox News or the left-leaning Media Matters.
But unlike a broken clock, it seems that Fox News is rarely right. As usual,
the journalistic level of reporting from Fox News can be accomplished just as
easily by any amateur blogger, who just echoes the usual blather, rather than
reporting actual "news". Whereas, Media Matters took the time to
investigate the story of fraud in the disability program. And unlike Fox News,
who just provided a commentary and repeated what others were saying, Media
Matters made many relevant and valid points, and provided their readers with a
slew of useful links to their sources.

Fox News reported that a two-year investigation by the Senate Permanent
Subcommittee on Investigations has found widespread fraud in the Social
Security Administration's Disability Program. (You can see the 3
hour video of the hearing at C-SPAN).

Fox News has been accused of being many things, one being the media arm of
the Republican Party. But their ideological slant and political bias has
become so blatant, it's become almost impossible to call them a news
organization. Just recently from Fox
News, regarding alleged fraud in the Social Security disability program:

"The fraud is so rampant, and disability cases have so proliferated
in recent years, that the Social Security's Disability Trust Fund may run
out of money in only 18 months, says Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., whose office
undertook the investigation. Coburn’s report on widespread fraud, released
Monday, focuses in large part on a veritable "disability claim
factory" allegedly run by attorney Eric C. Conn out of his small
office in Stanville, Kentucky, a region of the country where 10 to 15
percent of the population receives disability payments."

Floyd County's entire population is 38,949 --- so 15% of the population
would be 5,842 --- but of the 1,375 disability cases that one particular judge
in Kentucky had ruled on, only 300 cases were reviewed from a random
examination --- but Fox News offers this anecdotal evidence as absolute proof
that the alleged fraud highlights an "endemic problem" in the
disability program on a national scale, rather than just being an isolated
incident of fraud by one lawyer and judge at the local level in a small
Kentucky town.

Fox News had also falsely reported that disability payments "have
skyrocketed across the U.S. in recent years." CBS News had earlier
reported that 12 million Americans received disability benefits, then Fox
News recently
claimed that 14 million Americans used the disability program --- just as
NPR had been falsely
reporting. But the Social Security Administration currently
reports it's far less, and that it's actually 8.9 million disabled
Americans who are in the program. So this misrepresentation of the numbers can
only mean that Fox News, CBS and NPR were willfully misleading the public in
their reporting.

Also, as
it was thoroughly detailed at the Economic Populist, although more people
were applying for disability benefits, and the number of disability
"claims" have increased in the aftermath of the Great Recession,
actual "awards" have gone down, while "termination
rates" have increased. So Fox News was wrong again, as were many others
in the media. Disability payments have NOT "skyrocketed across the US in
recent years", but have only gradually increased with nominal population
growth which includes an aging work force.

Besides aging
Baby Boomers, the Social Security Administration says the lingering
effects of the recession was another possible cause for increased
"claims", even though awards are down. But if it were not for a lack
of jobs, many people who do qualify for disability would prefer to work
instead. But employers
aren't hiring older workers (those who are most likely to file a
disability claim) --- and especially if these older workers were long-term
unemployed (and/or were also disabled). It should also be noted that the older
and longer one has been unemployed, the
least likely they would ever be rehired again.

Compare the way Media
Matters debunked the alleged "widespread fraud" in the
disability program, as opposed to the way Fox
News, CBS,
and the NPR
has reported. A few highlights from Media Matters:

The Government Accountability Office has repeatedly found that fraud
accounts for approximately one percent of all disability payments.

CBS ignored the fact that the majority of appeals are also denied, and
that award rates have actually fallen during the economic recession.

The myths pushed by 60 Minutes have been repeatedly debunked by experts.

A coalition of approximately 100 national disability organizations said
the CBS coverage was "sensational" and did a "tremendous
disservice" to people with disabilities.

The misleading CBS investigation follows a discredited report from NPR
that eight former Social Security commissioners previously denounced.

So essentially, there has NOT been widespread fraud in disability claims,
just widespread false reporting of widespread fraud. (Also read: The
Last Word on Social Security Disability, which further debunks the myths
and misinformation that Fox News and others have falsely reported on Social Security disability.)

Should Hillary Clinton be indicted by Donald Trump's new AG?

Blogster-at-Large

Bud Meyers writes about the economy, politics, Social Security, corporate outsourcing, labor statistics, the REAL unemployment rate, taxes and tax evasion, government and corporate corruption, and the plight of the long-term unemployed.